Page 73 of Baby Love

Turning, Spin looks up at me with red, swollen eyes.

“I’m so tired of fighting just to keep my head above water,” he admits, chin trembling.

Drawing him into my arms, I hold him tightly while he cries. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I say over and over. “I promise you, Spin. Everything’s going to be okay.”

I will keep that promise and make him happy, no matter what I have to do.

When Spin’s cried himself out, he falls asleep. I tuck him into bed before righting the chair that’s knocked over in the corner of the room and setting a few other things to rights. Then I join the others still cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and living room.

“That asshole knew what that conch meant to Baby. He had to have. Why else would he have thrown it against the wall like that?” Bass says as he angrily sweeps the floor.

“I think he saw it before Spin hid it,” Nok says. “He knew what he was doing.”

I think of my father and how great he was and realize how lucky I was to have him for the time I did.

It’s after two in the morning when we’re finished cleaning and I walk Spin’s friends to the door.

“You better be good to Spin,” Bass warns me.

“I will. I care a lot about him,” I say sincerely.

Kiet returns from checking on Spin.

“He’s still asleep. Are you staying the rest of the night?” he asks me. “I can, if you want to go home.”

“I’ll stay,” I say. I didn’t tell Auntie we wrapped up early, so she doesn’t expect me back until tomorrow night.

Exhausted, I lock the door after them and settle into the mattress next to Spin.

In the following weeks, our filming schedule is grueling. P’Big has a deadline he’s determined to meet. We all do our best, the makeup department covering the dark circles under our eyes from lack of sleep. Pear avoids me now, but that’s all right with me. I don’t want to give Spin any reason to doubt me. Daeng and Gift continue to have a sizzling screen presence while bickering off camera.

On the nights we get to go home, I worry about Spin being alone in his apartment even though he repeatedly assures me he’s doing fine. After having cried it out the night he found his apartment torn apart, he quickly rallied. I’m sure it helps that Kiet spends a lot of time with him. I try not to be jealous, but I can’t help it. I want to spend all my spare time with Spin, but I have to be with my sister, and Spin refuses to come back to live with us.

“We can’t just move in together,” he tells me. “We’re too new.”

He’s probably right, but I don’t like it. I can’t wait for filming to wrap up. We’ll have a lot of promotion work to do after that, but the hours won’t be so awful.

When the full trailer for Heartbeat is released, the message boards light up with comments from excited fans. Spin and I get a lot of attention as a couple. Daeng and Gift have fans split down the middle. Diehard PrinceGift fans can’t get over them and don’t like seeing Gift working with someone else. Others are agreeable to the change and even develop a theory that Gift has whipped playboy Daeng into shape. I have to admit Daeng seems to be behaving himself, but that could be due to exhaustion from our relentless schedule over the past few months.

Finally, our last scene is filmed and the cast takes a group picture with the crew and staff. This is the first time I’ve ever been so worn out after a series that I can’t muster up the energy to celebrate. I go back to Spin’s place with him, and we both pass out for two days.

Other than a few hasty make-out sessions, Spin and I haven’t had the time nor the energy to be intimate since that night at the hotel. Being inside of him is never far from my mind, but I doubt my body would cooperate even if an opportunity presented itself. And the end of filming doesn’t bring an end to the work. As soon as we revive from filming the series, we begin a string of game show appearances, product endorsement appearances, and, when the show premieres, fan meetings as far away as Korea. It isn’t difficult to be affectionate in front of fans, since we’re together in real life. Of course, we don’t tell anyone that, but speculation is high. Every time I see someone comment “It’s just fanservice, how dumb can you be?” I have to laugh at the irony.

“You and Spin have to film a reaction video to episode one tonight,” Khun Lee tells me when I pick up the phone on a Friday morning while walking Anya to school. “I’ve made a YouTube channel for the two of you where we’ll post them, along with some other videos we’ve made of the behind the scenes of your recent appearances.”

“Okay,” I say. “Where will we film it?”

“Either your place or his. It’s up to you.”

Since I don’t want Anya to be filmed and Spin’s apartment is presentable now that he has replaced his furniture, I choose his apartment. The camera and lighting guys arrive an hour early, and Spin and I sit on the new couch to watch the episode.

It’s always weird to see myself on film and to watch the series as a finished product. Even though we were there, filming all the scenes, they weren’t filmed in order, and we don’t know what was kept and what was left out. With the edits and the background music added, it’s a completely new experience, and Spin and I watch it with avid attention.

“Wow,” Spin says during the scene where Khao is roughed up by a gang in the alleyway behind the office building where he works. “That’s so scary.”

“When Angel hit the wall there at the end, he broke his finger,” I say. Angel played the lead gang member.

Spin nods. “Right, I heard about that.”

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